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"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."---Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

Verbal Judo is the martial art of the mind and mouth that can show you how to be better prepared in every verbal encounter. Listen and speak more effectively, engage people through empathy (the most powerful word in the English language), avoid the most common conversational disasters, and use proven strategies that allow you to successfully communicate your point of view and take the upper hand in most disputes.

Verbal Judo offers a creative look at conflict that will help you defuse confrontations and generate cooperation from your spouse, your boss, and even your teenager. As the author says, "when you react, the event controls you. When you respond, you’re in control."

This new edition features a fresh new cover and a foreword demonstrating the legacy of Verbal Judo founder and author George Thompson, as well as a never-before-published final chapter presenting Thompson’s "Five Universal Truths" of human interaction.

New York Times Bestseller: The “miraculous” memoir of an inspiring teacher and the students who changed his life on an impoverished South Carolina island (Newsweek).

Though the children of Yamacraw Island live less than two miles from the southern mainland, they can’t name the US president or the ocean that surrounds them. Most can’t read or write. Many of the students are the descendants of slaves, handicapped by poverty and isolation.

When Pat Conroy arrives, an eager young teacher at the height of the civil rights movement, he finds a community still bound by the bitter effects of racism, but he is determined to broaden its members’ horizons and give them a voice.

In this poignant memoir, which Newsweek called “an experience of joy,” the New York Times–bestselling author of The Prince of Tides plumbs his experiences as a young teacher on an isolated South Carolina island to reveal the shocking inequalities of the American education system.

The ultimate alphabetically arranged thesaurus that will help you find the right word every time—now bigger and better than ever before!

This all-new edition of the classic reference work is the one thesaurus no home or office should be without. As easy to use as a dictionary—and just as important for you to own—this is a unique and indispensable treasury of words that will enable you to express your ideas clearly and effectively. With the synonyms and antonyms for each word listed alphabetically for quick, convenient use, this superior reference volume will help you build your vocabulary, improve your writing skills, and enrich your powers of expression.

• Simple to use—no index required• More than 5,000 new words and phrases• 2,000 new synonym entry words for more efficient cross-referencing• 30 new categories • Easy-to-read double-column format• Latest colloquial and slang terms• Quotations and phrases that reveal the fascinating history of each word and the ideas it represents

100% of net book proceeds (royalties) are used to fund scholarships for students and grants for educators.

At a time when individuals need inspiration the most due to adversity, peer-pressure, and loss of direction, From Failure to Promise - 360 Degrees -- author Dr. Cleamon Moorer shares insights, experiences, and a miraculous story of how God can transform the real you into the ideal you. Dr. Moorer tells about his journey from being a college flunk-out to becoming an engineer and ultimately a university professor. He exposes the realities of how many of the downtrodden are pushed to the brink of either surrender to the power of God, or to a resistance and rejection of promise. Dr. Moorer takes readers on a faith journey from his adolescence in Detroit Public Schools to academic failure on the collegiate level and through other turbulent tracks on the way to becoming a university professor and dean. This story of one young man's journey will serve as a compass for those who are in pursuit of success. He shares relative scriptures, skills, and strategies pertinent to overcoming failure. It is an amazing story with an UNBELIEVABLE FINISH and a "call to action"!

Frank McCourt's glorious childhood memoir, Angela's Ashes, has been loved and celebrated by readers everywhere for its spirit, its wit and its profound humanity. A tale of redemption, in which storytelling itself is the source of salvation, it won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Rarely has a book so swiftly found its place on the literary landscape. And now we have 'Tis, the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant to brilliant teacher and raconteur. Frank lands in New York at age nineteen, in the company of a priest he meets on the boat. He gets a job at the Biltmore Hotel, where he immediately encounters the vivid hierarchies of this "classless country," and then is drafted into the army and is sent to Germany to train dogs and type reports. It is Frank's incomparable voice -- his uncanny humor and his astonishing ear for dialogue -- that renders these experiences spellbinding. When Frank returns to America in 1953, he works on the docks, always resisting what everyone tells him, that men and women who have dreamed and toiled for years to get to America should "stick to their own kind" once they arrive. Somehow, Frank knows that he should be getting an education, and though he left school at fourteen, he talks his way into New York University. There, he falls in love with the quintessential Yankee, long-legged and blonde, and tries to live his dream. But it is not until he starts to teach -- and to write -- that Frank finds his place in the world. The same vulnerable but invincible spirit that captured the hearts of readers in Angela's Ashes comes of age. As Malcolm Jones said in his Newsweek review of Angela's Ashes, "It is only the best storyteller who can so beguile his readers that he leaves them wanting more when he is done...and McCourt proves himself one of the very best." Frank McCourt's 'Tis is one of the most eagerly awaited books of our time, and it is a masterpiece.

Accepted writing style conventions change very slowly, but they do change. That is all the more reason why this favorite reference book for students, writers, and educators requires periodic updating. In this new edition, the authors review the fundamentals of correct sentence structure, then present twenty basic sentence patterns that encompass virtually every effective way of writing simple, compound, and complex sentences. They give advice on ways to vary rhythm and sentence patterns to produce a more interesting writing style. Example sentences as well as brief essays by recognized writers are presented and analyzed. This brand-new edition, updated with many contemporary examples of fine writing style, will inspire both students and seasoned writers to make their own essays sing.

This is the true story of a woman who prevailed against the most heinous accusations imaginable.

Tonya Craft, a Georgia kindergarten teacher and loving mother of two, never expected a knock on her door to change her life forever. But in May 2008, false accusations of child molestation turned her world upside down. The trial that followed dragged her reputation through the mud and lent nationwide notoriety to her name.

Tonya’s life spiraled into a witch-trial nightmare in which she was deemed guilty before her innocence could be determined by a jury. Her children were taken away without even a goodbye, and her own daughter was forced to take the stand against her in a courtroom. The situation seemed hopeless, and Tonya was shell-shocked and heartbroken. But that didn’t keep her from finding the strength to fight.

Over the course of two terrifying years, Tonya rallied to take charge of her own defense, flying across the country and knocking on doors on a desperate quest for answers, and defying her own lawyers on more than one occasion. Tonya’s goal was not only to avoid conviction; it was to clear her name, and, most of all, regain custody of her children.

Accused is about more than Tonya’s shocking trial and fight for justice. It is the story of a mother’s extraordinary love, the faith that sees her through it all, and the forgiveness that sets her free.

Have you read (or stumbled into) one too many irrational online debates? Ali Almossawi certainly had, so he wrote An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments! This handy guide is here to bring the internet age a much-needed dose of old-school logic (really old-school, a la Aristotle).

Here are cogent explanations of the straw man fallacy, the slippery slope argument, the ad hominem attack, and other common attempts at reasoning that actually fall short—plus a beautifully drawn menagerie of animals who (adorably) commit every logical faux pas. Rabbit thinks a strange light in the sky must be a UFO because no one can prove otherwise (the appeal to ignorance). And Lion doesn’t believe that gas emissions harm the planet because, if that were true, he wouldn’t like the result (the argument from consequences).

Once you learn to recognize these abuses of reason, they start to crop up everywhere from congressional debate to YouTube comments—which makes this geek-chic book a must for anyone in the habit of holding opinions.

Born in a Virginia slave hut, Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) rose to become the most influential spokesman for African Americans of his day. In this eloquently written book, he describes events in a remarkable life that began in bondage and culminated in worldwide recognition for his many accomplishments. In simply written yet stirring passages, he tells of his impoverished childhood and youth, the unrelenting struggle for an education, early teaching assignments, his selection in 1881 to head Tuskegee Institute, and more.A firm believer in the value of education as the best route to advancement, Washington disapproved of civil-rights agitation and in so doing earned the opposition of many black intellectuals. Yet, he is today regarded as a major figure in the struggle for equal rights, one who founded a number of organizations to further the cause and who worked tirelessly to educate and unite African Americans.

In March 1968, thousands of Chicano students walked out of their East Los Angeles high schools and middle schools to protest decades of inferior and discriminatory education in the so-called "Mexican Schools." During these historic walkouts, or "blowouts," the students were led by Sal Castro, a courageous and charismatic Mexican American teacher who encouraged the students to make their grievances public after school administrators and school board members failed to listen to them. The resulting blowouts sparked the beginning of the urban Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the largest and most widespread civil rights protests by Mexican Americans in U.S. history.

This fascinating testimonio, or oral history, transcribed and presented in Castro's voice by historian Mario T. Garcia, is a compelling, highly readable narrative of a young boy growing up in Los Angeles who made history by his leadership in the blowouts and in his career as a dedicated and committed teacher. Blowout! fills a major void in the history of the civil rights and Chicano movements of the 1960s, particularly the struggle for educational justice.

More than ever in this completely updated edition, The Elements of Expression helps word users "light up the cosmos or the written page or the face across the table" as they seek the radiance of expressiveness—the vivid expression of thoughts, feelings, and observations. Nothing kills radiance like the murky, generic language dominating today's talk, airwaves, and posts. It tugs at our every sentence, but using it to express anything beyond the ordinary is like flapping the tongue to escape gravity. The Elements of Expression offers an adventurous and inspiring flight into words that truly share what's percolating in our minds. Here writers, presenters, students, bloggers—even well intentioned "Mad Men"—will discover language to convey precise feelings, move audiences, delight and persuade. No snob or scold, the acclaimed word-maven Arthur Plotnik explores the full range of expressiveness, from playful "tough talk" to finely wrought literature, with hundreds of rousing examples. Confessing that we are all "like a squid in its ink" when first groping for luminous expression, he shines his amiable wit on the elements leading, ultimately, to language of "fissionable intensity."

In 1913, a young unschooled Indian clerk wrote a letter to G H Hardy, begging the preeminent English mathematician's opinion on several ideas he had about numbers. Realizing the letter was the work of a genius, Hardy arranged for Srinivasa Ramanujan to come to England. Thus began one of the most improbable and productive collaborations ever chronicled. With a passion for rich and evocative detail, Robert Kanigel takes us from the temples and slums of Madras to the courts and chapels of Cambridge University, where the devout Hindu Ramanujan, "the Prince of Intuition," tested his brilliant theories alongside the sophisticated and eccentric Hardy, "the Apostle of Proof." In time, Ramanujan's creative intensity took its toll: he died at the age of thirty-two and left behind a magical and inspired legacy that is still being plumbed for its secrets today.

From classic poetry to pop lyrics, from Charles Dickens to Dolly Parton, even from Jesus to James Bond, Mark Forsyth explains the secrets that make a phrase—such as “O Captain! My Captain!” or “To be or not to be”—memorable.

In his inimitably entertaining and wonderfully witty style, he takes apart famous phrases and shows how you too can write like Shakespeare or quip like Oscar Wilde. Whether you’re aiming to achieve literary immortality or just hoping to deliver the perfect one-liner, The Elements of Eloquence proves that you don’t need to have anything important to say—you simply need to say it well.

In an age unhealthily obsessed with the power of substance, this is a book that highlights the importance of style.

As a child with Tourette syndrome, Brad Cohen was ridiculed, beaten, mocked, and shunned. Children, teachers, and even family members found it difficult to be around him. As a teen, he was viewed by many as purposefully misbehaving, even though he had little power over the twitches and noises he produced, especially under stress. Even today, Brad is sometimes ejected from movie theaters and restaurants.

But Brad Cohen's story is not one of self-pity. His unwavering determination and fiercely positive attitude conquered the difficulties he faced in school, in college, and while job hunting. Brad never stopped striving, and after twenty-four interviews, he landed his dream job: teaching grade school and nurturing all of his students as a positive, encouraging role model. Front of the Class tells his inspirational story.

Fractured Not Broken is a true story of loss, faith, and a rare love that only happens in nonfiction.

In a sweeping and heart-wrenching narrative, Kelly exposes the truth about what happened after a drunk driver rendered her a quadriplegic. She shares how she found her way back—through faith and pain, her community, her family, and the love of a man she’d prayed for.

This book has been a true encouragement to me. Thank you Kelly for sharing your story— the loss and the unexpected joy— so that each reader can be uplifted knowing there is a full, rich life available to those who lean in to our Lord Jesus. —Renee Bondi, Award-Winning Singer and Songwriter

Life has its tragic moments of defeat, setbacks, and fracturing for everyone. Kelly's story proves, however, that individual momentum, personal progress, and genuine achievement can still be attained. Her courage and optimism are uplifting. Open these pages and experience the joy of ultimate victory. —Dr. Dennis E. Hensley, Author, Jesus in All Four Seasons

This is a real life story of heroic virtue—especially of courage, humility, and generosity—a triumph of faith, hope and love. This story involves the very essence of the human spirit, family, and community. To know Kelly and her journey of miracles is to know that with God all things are possible. —Most Reverend Charles C. Thompson Bishop of Evansville

Psychic medium B. Anne Gehman gave her first spirit readings to her teddy bears at age five. Raised in the Mennonite tradition, she left home at age 14 to finish her schooling. A life-changing near-death experience led Anne to develop her natural gifts, including an uncanny ability to predict future events. She has gained international attention for her help in solving crimes, locating oil and missing persons, healing illnesses, and connecting family members with their loved ones in spirit. She has worked with top government agencies and officials, police departments, judges, and corporate CEOs. While remarkable for her spiritual gifts and experiences, AnneOCOs life is all the more fascinating due to an unusual twist: she is married to Wayne Knoll, Ph.D., a former Jesuit priest. A brilliant student devoted to his faith, Wayne also left home at 14 to join a Roman Catholic seminary. Even while pursuing his lifeOCOs dream as a professor of literature at Georgetown University, Wayne felt an emptiness that only a woman could fill. After more than a decade of religious training, he made the wrenching decision to leave the priesthood, not knowing if he would find the love he sought. The Priest and the Medium shares the remarkable story of two soul mates on parallel paths with divergent beliefs, yet united in their love for God and each other."

There's no need to fear the big, bad world of writing with The Little Red Writing Book in hand. Brimming with clever advice, this book offers writers, students, and business professionals a concise guide to penning strong and effective work for all occasions.

The Little Red Writing Book is designed for visual appeal and ease of use. Elegant yet practical, it will be an intriguing, inviting reference you'll turn to again and again. Author Brandon Royal offers concise explanations and nonintimidating instruction based on the four pillars of sound writing: structure, style, readability, and grammar. His discussion centers on 20 immutable writing principles as well as 30 commonly encountered rules of grammar. A wealth of examples, charts, and engaging exercises make The Little Red Writing Book an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to master those skills that will make a good writer even better.

"One Shot at Forever is powerful, inspirational. . . . This isn't merely a book about baseball. It's a book about heart."--Jeff Pearlman, New York Times bestselling author of Boys Will Be Boys and The Bad Guys Won

In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois, playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats, defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370 teams to represent the smallest school in Illinois history to make the state final, a distinction that still stands. There the Ironmen would play against a Chicago powerhouse in a dramatic game that would change their lives forever.

In this gripping, cinematic narrative, Chris Ballard tells the story of the team and its coach, Lynn Sweet: a hippie, dreamer, and intellectual who arrived in Macon in 1966, bringing progressive ideas to a town stuck in the Eisenhower era. Beloved by students but not administration, Sweet reluctantly took over the ragtag team, intent on teaching the boys as much about life as baseball. Together they embarked on an improbable postseason run that buoyed a small town in desperate need of something to celebrate.

Engaging and poignant, One Shot at Forever is a testament to the power of high school sports to shape the lives of those who play them, and it reminds us that there are few bonds more sacred than that among a coach, a team, and a town.

"Macon's run at the title reminds us why sports matter and why sportswriting has such great power to inspire. . . . [It's] one hell of a good story, and Ballard has written one hell of a good book." --Jonathan Eig, Chicago Tribune

Besides being a football coach at his Michigan High School, MikeKersjes taught special education classes, dealing with children whose disabilities included Tourette syndrome, Downs Syndrome, dyslexia, eating disorders and a variety of emotional problems.

One autumn Kersjes got the outlandish idea that his students would benefit from going to Space Camp, where, in conjunction with NASA, high school students compete in a variety of activities similar to those experienced by astronauts in training for space shuttle missions. There was only one problem: this program had been specifically designed for gifted and talented students, the best and the brightest from America's most privileged high schools.

Kersjes believed that, given a chance, his kids could do as well as anybody, and with remarkable persistence broke down one barrier after another, from his own principal's office to the inner sanctum of NASA, until Space Camp opened its doors, on an experimental basis, to special ed students. After nine months of rigorous preparation, during which the class molded itself into a working team, they arrived at Space Camp, where they turned in a performance so startling, so surprising, that it will leave the reader breathless. A truly triumphant story of the power of the human spirit.

Korean Composition is the first book in English for students of Korean language aimed not only at enhancing their writing skills and overall linguistic competence, but also at organizing and developing their ideas and thoughts with grammatically, stylistically, and culturally correct expressions. The Essential Composition section contains chapters concerned with the writing of essays, diaries and letters, document preparation, and expository writing. The Advanced Composition section considers descriptions of impressions, writing poetry, newspaper accounts, writing articles and theses, and summarizing. Each chapter consists of numerous units designed to cover words, phrases, idioms, and grammatical patterns (with sentence examples). Exercises and a model writing example are included in each unit.

Advanced students who need assistance in choosing proper topics and materials as well as in using diverse expressions in creative writing will benefit from the section on steps of composition and styles of writing. English translations of model writings, an index of useful grammatical patterns, and an English-Korean glossary are provided at the end of the text.

Korean Composition is aimed at college-level students who have completed at least beginning and intermediate levels of Korean. For students using the Integrated Korean series, this text is recommended for use after the completion of Advanced Intermediate 2.

THE BATTLE FOR ROOM 314In a fit of idealism, Ed Boland left a twenty-year career as a non-profit executive to teach in a tough New York City public high school. But his hopes quickly collided headlong with the appalling reality of his students' lives and a hobbled education system unable to help them: Freddy runs a drug ring for his incarcerated brother; Nee-cole is homeschooled on the subway by her brilliant homeless mother; and Byron's Ivy League dream is dashed because he is undocumented. In the end, Boland isn't hoisted on his students' shoulders and no one passes AP anything. This is no urban fairy tale of at-risk kids saved by a Hollywood hero, but a searing indictment of schools that claim to be progressive but still fail their students. Told with compassion, humor, and a keen eye, Boland's story is sure to ignite debate about the future of American education and attempts to reform it.

This deluxe edition contains the complete contents of The Little Red Writing Book and The Little Gold Grammar Book. Whereas writing is based on principles – in which writing is deemed better or worse, more effective or less effective – grammar is based on rules, in which writing is deemed right or wrong, correct or incorrect. With coverage of the most useful writing principles and the most commonly encountered rules of grammar, The Little Red Writing Book Deluxe Edition is an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to master those skills that will make a good writer even better.

Enjoy the benefits of your own self-paced writing course:

Writing has four pillars – structure, style, readability, and grammar – and each pillar is like the single leg of a sturdy chair.

•Structure relates to organization and deciding in which order to present your ideas. Learn how to choose the best writing structure to develop your ideas, how to break your writing topic into two to four parts, and how to write with a top-down approach.

•Style describes how one writes, including how to use specific examples to support what is written. Learn how to make writing more simple, powerful, and vivid. Understand how to vary sentence beginnings, how to create a formal and informal tone, and how to keep writing gender neutral.

•Readability focuses on presentation and how to make your document visually pleasing and easy to read. Learn how to make key words stand out, how to use headings and headlines to “frame” writing, and how to increase the use of white space to allow your document to “breathe.”

•Grammar is about expressing language in a correct and acceptable form. Review the rules of grammar in terms of six common categories (subject-verb agreement, pronoun usage, modification, parallelism, comparisons, and verb tenses), and use short exercises and problems to help integrate key concepts of grammar, diction, idioms, and style.

•Also included are special sections on editing tips and punctuation, America English vs. British English, and traditional writing vs. digital writing.

“Appropriate for its audience of ambitious students and professionals: those who have plenty of brains, but need a little brush-up with the pen.” —Publishers Weekly Online Reviews

In the spirit of Studs Terkel's Working, Bill Smoot interviews master teachers in fields ranging from K--12 and higher education to the arts, trades and professions, sports, and politics. The result suggests a dinner party where the most fascinating teachers in America discuss their various styles as well as what makes their work meaningful to them. What is it that passes between the best teachers and their students to make learning happen? What are the keys to teaching the joys of literature, shooting a basketball, alligator wrestling, or how to survive one's first year in the U.S. Congress? Smoot's insightful questions elicit thought-provoking reflections about teaching as a calling and its aims, frustrations, and satisfactions.

Booker T. Washington’s classic memoir of enslavement, emancipation, and community advancement in the Reconstruction Era.

Born into slavery on a tobacco farm in nineteenth-century Virginia, Booker T. Washington became one of the most powerful intellectuals of the Reconstruction Era. As president of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, he advocated for the advancement of African Americans through education and entrepreneurship. In Up from Slavery, Washington speaks frankly and honestly about his enslavement and emancipation, struggle to receive an education, and life’s work as an educator.

In great detail, Washington describes establishing the Tuskegee Institute, from teaching its first classes in a hen house to building a prominent institution through community organization and a national fundraising campaign. He also addresses major issues of the era, such as the Jim Crow laws, Ku Klux Klan, and “false foundation” of Reconstruction policy.

Up From Slavery is based on biographical articles written for the Christian newspaper Outlook and includes the full text of Washington’s revolutionary Atlanta Exposition address. First published in 1901, this powerful autobiography remains a landmark of African American literature as well as an important firsthand account of post–Civil War American history.

This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

From one of America’s most celebrated educators, an inspiring guide to transforming every child’s education

In a Los Angeles neighborhood plagued by guns, gangs, and drugs, there is an exceptional classroom known as Room 56. The fifth graders inside are first-generation immigrants who live in poverty and speak English as a second language. They also play Vivaldi, perform Shakespeare, score in the top 1 percent on standardized tests, and go on to attend Ivy League universities. Rafe Esquith is the teacher responsible for these accomplishments.

From the man whom The New York Times calls “a genius and a saint” comes a revelatory program for educating today’s youth. In Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire!, Rafe Esquith reveals the techniques that have made him one of the most acclaimed educators of our time. The two mottoes in Esquith’s classroom are “Be Nice, Work Hard,” and “There Are No Shortcuts.” His students voluntarily come to school at 6:30 in the morning and work until 5:00 in the afternoon. They learn to handle money responsibly, tackle algebra, and travel the country to study history. They pair Hamlet with rock and roll, and read the American classics. Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire! is a brilliant and inspiring road map for parents, teachers, and anyone who cares about the future success of our nation’s children.

When Frank Hammond became a counselor at South Oak Cliff High School in the Dallas Independent School District, he had a good feeling. As a black man with a solid church upbringing and a degree from a historical black college, he felt he could really make a difference in the lives of young, inner-city kids who attended this predominately black high school.

It didn’t take Hammond long to discover that all was not well within the walls of the high school. In SOC: Welcome to the Cage, he provides a behind-the-scenes look at what happened at this school as the focus turned from understanding black dynamics to black exploitation. Hammond reveals the scandals that took place at the school, including a corrupt and unethical principal, a staff that stole from students and engaged in inappropriate sexual relations, security guards who forced students to cage fight, and manipulation of student grades.

SOC: Welcome to the Cage narrates the transgressions and describes what happened when Hammond blew the whistle; the school district was forced to choose between doing what was right and protecting its basketball championships—an action that affected a member of the University of Kansas national championship basketball team.

Taking the form of a dialogue between Socrates, Gorgias, Polus and Callicles, GORGIAS debates perennial questions about the nature of government and those who aspire to public office. Are high moral standards essential or should we give our preference to the pragmatist who gets things done or negotiates successfully? Should individuals be motivated by a desire for personal power and prestige, or genuine concern for the moral betterment of the citizens? These questions go to the heart of Athenian democratic principles and are more relevant than ever in today's political climate.

In this revealing and provocative memoir, the former chancellor of the New York City schools offers the behind-the-scenes story of the city’s dramatic campaign to improve public education and an inspiring blueprint for national reform.

In 2002 New York City’s newly elected mayor, Michael Bloomberg, made a historic announcement: his administration had won control of the city’s school system in a first step toward reversing its precipitous decline. In a controversial move, he appointed Joel Klein, an accomplished lawyer from outside the education establishment, to lead this ambitious campaign.

Lessons of Hope is Klein’s inside account of his eight-year mission of improvement: demanding accountability, eliminating political favoritism, and battling a powerful teachers union that seemed determined to protect a status quo that didn’t work for kids. Klein’s initiatives resulted in more school choice, higher graduation rates, and improved test scores. The New York City model is now seen as a national standard for meaningful school reform. But the journey was not easy. Klein faced resistance and conflict at every turn.

Lessons of Hope lays bare the problems plaguing public education and shows how they can be solved. At its core lies Klein’s personal story: his humble upbringing in Brooklyn and Queens, and the key role that outstanding public school teachers played in nurturing his success. Engaging and illuminating, Lessons of Hope is essential reading for anyone concerned about the future of American public education.

Be inspired by the magnetic young principal who “stands on the front line of the fight to educate America's children." (Brandon Stanton, author of Humans of New York ) and the book that Essence calls "Essential reading."

In 2010, Nadia Lopez started her middle-grade public school, Mott Hall Bridges Academy, in one of America’s poorest communities, in a record heat wave—and crime wave. Everything was an uphill battle—to get the school approved, to recruit faculty and students, to solve a million new problems every day, from violent crime to vanishing supplies—but Lopez was determined to break the downward spiral that had trapped too many inner-city children. The lessons came fast: unengaged teachers, wayward students, and the educational system itself, rarely in tune with the already disadvantaged and underprepared.

Things were at a low ebb for everyone when one of her students told a photographer that his principal, “Ms. Lopez,” was the person who most influenced his life. The posting on Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York site was the pebble that started a lucky landslide for Lopez and her team. Lopez found herself in the national spotlight and headed for a meeting with President Obama, as well as the beneficiary of a million-dollar campaign for the school, to fund her next dream: a field trip for her students to visit another school—Harvard.

The Bridge to Brilliance is a book filled with common sense and caring that will carry her message to communities and classrooms far from Brooklyn. As she says, modestly, “There are hundreds of Ms. Lopezes around this country doing good work for kids. This honors all of them.”

In College Girl, a university professor revisits the memory of a brutal sexual assault and recounts her long, circuitous route from trauma to recovery. Offering present-day reflections alongside the fresh, hopeful voice of the twenty-year-old student she once was, Laura Gray-Rosendale tells the story of her near destruction and her family’s disintegration, but also one of abiding friendships and shining hope. In the end, College Girl is also a story about stories, and a meditation on memoir itself.

Gray-Rosendale writes in a tone that is simply unforgettable—gritty, humorous, and raw. Artfully written and devoid of self-pity, College Girl is a rich story of triumph, hope, and survival.

By going back to the Italian humanist tradition and aspects of earlier Greek and Latin thought, Ernesto Grassi develops a conception of rhetoric as the basis of philosophy. Grassi explores the sense in which the first principles of rational thought come from the metaphorical power of the word. He finds the basis for his conception in the last great thinker of the Italian humanist tradition, Giambattista Vico (1668-1744). He concentrates on Vico's understanding of imagination and the sense of human ingenuity contained in metaphor. For Grassi, rhetorical activity is the essence and inner life of thought when connected to the metaphorical power of the word.

Originally published in English in 1980, Rhetoric as Philosophy has been out of print for some time. In his foreword to this reprint edition, Burke scholar Timothy W. Crusius rues the lack of concentrated attention to Grassi because "what he had to say about rhetoric is at least as significant as, for example, what Kenneth Burke taught us".

The primary voice of the African American community from 1890 to 1915, and the author of Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington was an educator and orator as well as a founder of the Alabama school that developed into Tuskegee University. Washington proposed that most African Americans would benefit from a practical trade rather than a liberal arts education — a position opposed by other black leaders, including W. E. B. Dubois, and the source of a debate that lingers to this day. In this autobiographical work, Washington discusses how he arrived at his views on race relations, focusing on the importance of cooperation and teamwork and describing the experiences that led to the founding of Tuskegee. My Larger Education is essential reading for anyone wishing to learn more about Washington and his ideas as well as those seeking insights into the challenges faced by African Americans at the turn of the twentieth century.

"PULITZER PRIZE IN LETTERS: BIOGRAPHY FINALIST""NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRLE AWARDS AUTOBIOGRAPHY FINALIST"New York Times BestsellerFirst Lady Michelle Obama's Favorite Book of 2015A New Yorker, NPR, Boston Globe, Publisher's Weekly, Newsday, Library Journal, People.com, Shelf Awareness, The Root, and St. Louis Dispact Best Book of 2015 PickNew York Times Book Review Editor's ChoiceAn Amazon's Best Book of the Month, April 2015IndieBound Indie Next #1 Pick, May 2015A deeply resonant memoir for anyone who has loved and lost, from acclaimed poet and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elizabeth Alexander. In THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, Elizabeth Alexander finds herself at an existential crossroads after the sudden death of her husband. Channeling her poetic sensibilities into a rich, lucid price, Alexander tells a love story that is, itself, a story of loss. As she reflects on the beauty of her married life, the trauma resulting from her husband's death, and the solace found in caring for her two teenage sons, Alexander universalizes a very personal quest for meaning and acceptance in the wake of loss. THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD is at once an endlessly compelling memoir and a deeply felt meditation on the blessings of love, family, art, and community. It is also a lyrical celebration of a life well-lived and a paean to the priceless gift of human companionship. For those who have loved and lost, or for anyone who cares what matters most, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD is required reading.

Philip Yancey, whose explorations of faith have made him a guide for millions of readers, feels no need to defend the church. "When someone tells me yet another horror story about the church, I respond, 'Oh, it's even worse than that. Let me tell you my story.'I have spent most of my life in recovery from the church."

Yancey acknowledges that many spiritual seekers find few answers and little solace in the institutional church. "I have met many people, and heard from many more, who have gone through a similar process of mining truth from their religious past: Roman Catholics who flinch whenever they see a nun or priest, former Seventh Day Adventists who cannot drink a cup of coffee without a stab of guilt, Mennonites who worry whether wedding rings give evidence of worldliness."

How did Yancey manage to survive spiritually despite early encounters with a racist, legalistic church that he now views as almost cultic? In this, his most soul-searching book yet, he probes that very question. He tells the story of his own struggle to reclaim belief, interwoven with inspiring portraits of notable people from all walks of life, whom he calls his spiritual directors. Soul Survivor is his tribute to thirteen remarkable individuals, mentors who transformed his life and work.

Besides recalling their effect on him, Yancey also provides fresh glimpses of the lives and faith journeys of each one. From the scatterbrained journalist G. K. Chesterton to the tortured novelists Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, to contemporaries such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Annie Dillard, Shusaku Endo, and Robert Coles, Yancey gives inspiring portraits of those who modeled for him a life-enhancing rather than a life-constricting faith.

"I became a writer, I now believe, to sort out and reclaim words used and misused by the Christians of my youth," Yancey says. "These are the people who ushered me into the Kingdom. In many ways they are why I remain a Christian today, and I want to introduce them to other spiritual seekers."

Soul Survivor offers illuminating insights that will enrich the lives of veteran believers and cautious seekers alike. Yancey's own story, unveiled here as never before, is a beacon for those who seek to rejuvenate their faith, and for those who are still longing for something to have faith in.

The extraordinary life of the woman behind the beloved children’s classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny comes alive in this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret’s books have sold millions of copies all over the world, but few people know that she was at the center of a children’s book publishing revolution. Her whimsy and imagination fueled a steady stream of stories, book ideas, songs, and poems and she was renowned for her prolific writing and business savvy, as well as her stunning beauty and endless thirst for adventure.

Margaret started her writing career by helping to shape the curriculum for the Bank Street School for children, making it her mission to create stories that would rise above traditional fairy tales and allowed girls to see themselves as equal to boys. At the same time, she also experimented endlessly with her own writing. Margaret would spend days researching subjects, picking daisies, cloud gazing, and observing nature, all in an effort to precisely capture a child’s sense of awe and wonder as they discovered the world.

Clever, quirky, and incredibly talented, Margaret embraced life with passion, lived extravagantly off of her royalties, went on rabbit hunts, and carried on long and troubled love affairs with both men and women. Among them were two great loves in Margaret’s life. One was a gender-bending poet and the ex-wife of John Barrymore. She went by the stage name of Michael Strange and she and Margaret had a tempestuous yet secret relationship, at one point living next door to each other so that they could be together. After the dissolution of their relationship and Michael’s death, Margaret became engaged to a younger man, who also happened to be the son of a Rockefeller and a Carnegie. But before they could marry Margaret died unexpectedly at the age of forty-two, leaving behind a cache of unpublished work and a timeless collection of books that would go on become classics in children’s literature.

In In the Great Green Room, author Amy Gary captures the eccentric and exceptional life of Margaret Wise Brown, and drawing on newly-discovered personal letters and diaries, reveals an intimate portrait of a creative genius whose unrivaled talent breathed new life in to the literary world.

Starting in 1902 at a country school that had an enrollment of fourteen, Frank Boyden built an academy that has long since taken its place on a level with Andover and Exeter. Boyden, who died in 1972, was the school's headmaster for sixty-six years. John McPhee portrays a remarkable man "at the near end of a skein of magnanimous despots who...created enduring schools through their own individual energies, maintained them under their own absolute rule, and left them forever imprinted with their own personalities." More than simply a portrait of the Headmaster of Deerfield Academy, it is a revealing look at the nature of private school education in America.

In this compelling new study, Debra Walker King considers fragments of experience recorded in oral histories and newspapers as well as those produced in twentieth-century novels, films, and television that reveal how the black body in pain functions as a rhetorical device and as political strategy. King's primary hypothesis is that, in the United States, black experience of the body in pain is as much a construction of social, ethical, and economic politics as it is a physiological phenomenon.

As an essential element defining black experience in America, pain plays many roles. It is used to promote racial stereotypes, increase the sale of movies and other pop culture products, and encourage advocacy for various social causes. Pain is employed as a tool of resistance against racism, but it also functions as a sign of racism's insidious ability to exert power over and maintain control of those it claims--regardless of race. With these dichotomous uses of pain in mind, King considers and questions the effects of the manipulation of an unspoken but long-standing belief that pain, suffering, and the hope for freedom and communal subsistence will merge to uplift those who are oppressed, especially during periods of social and political upheaval. This belief has become a ritualized philosophy fueling the multiple constructions of black bodies in pain, a belief that has even come to function as an identity and community stabilizer.

In her attempt to interpret the constant manipulation and abuse of this philosophy, King explores the redemptive and visionary power of pain as perceived historically in black culture, the aesthetic value of black pain as presented in a variety of cultural artifacts, and the socioeconomic politics of suffering surrounding the experiences and representations of blacks in the United States. The book introduces the term Blackpain, defining it as a tool of national mythmaking and as a source of cultural and symbolic capital that normalizes individual suffering until the individual--the real person--disappears. Ultimately, the book investigates America's love-hate relationship with black bodies in pain.

The Oldest Story in the World is a brooding, daring, idiosyncratic exploration of the secret strength of storytelling, in which Phil Cousineau addresses the central theme that runs through all his work, the transportive power of words. Written as a mosaic of meditations, this lyrical book ranges from a twelve-thousand-year-old Aboriginal tale, to a mystical Viking story, a venerable myth from the Seneca, and a modern parable from the world of house painters in San Francisco. Wrapped around the marvels he has collected from around the world are Cousineau's own edgy ruminations, which illuminate the irrepressible impulse for storytelling.

Writing is not like chemical engineering. The figures of speech should not be learned the same way as the periodic table of elements. This is because figures of speech are not about hypothetical structures in things, but about real potentialities within language and within ourselves. The "figurings" of speech reveal the apparently limitless plasticity of language itself. We are inescapably confronted with the intoxicating possibility that we can make language do for us almost anything we want. Or at least a Shakespeare can. The figures of speech help to see how he does it, and how we might.

Therefore, in the chapters presented in this volume, the quotations from Shakespeare, the Bible, and other sources are not presented to exemplify the definitions. Rather, the definitions are presented to lead to the quotations. And the quotations are there to show us how to do with language what we have not done before. They are there for imitation.

This guidebook addresses one of the most critical yet seldom taught skills. Reasoning skills help us make sense of the world, including how to better make decisions, tackle opportunities, evaluate claims, and solve problems. Interwoven within the book’s five sections – Perception & Mindset, Decision Making, Creative Thinking, Analyzing Arguments, and Mastering Logic – reader’s will discover 50 reasoning tips that summarize the common themes behind classic reasoning problems and situations. Appendixes contain summaries of fallacious reasoning, analogies, trade-offs, and a review of critical reading skills. A wealth of examples, charts, and insightful problems makes The Little Blue Reasoning Book an invaluable guide for any individual wanting to further sharpen his or her thinking skills.

Enjoy the benefits of your own self-paced reasoning course:*Gain insights into the four classic mindsets and how each influences one’s outlook.*Make better decisions by framing problems with quantitative tools.*Employ creative thinking to bypass “roadblocks” and unlock novel solutions.*Evaluate claims by challenging the strength of key assumptions.*Use logic to break down arguments in a clear, easy-to-understand manner.*Review the 10 classic trade-offs to speed recognition of core issues.*Read with added clarity, whether your goal involves pleasure or profit.

“A wonderful work that shows how reasoning is challenging, yet engaging, rewarding and fun. Because reasoning involves people, it is an art as well as a science. And to remind ourselves just why it’s not always easy to mix the two, we owe a cheerful salute to Nobel prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann who observed: ‘Think how hard physics would be if particles could think.’” —Dr. William A. McEachern, author, award-winning teacher, and founding editor of The Teaching Economist

Verbal Judo is the martial art of the mind and mouth that can show you how to be better prepared in every verbal encounter. Listen and speak more effectively, engage people through empathy (the most powerful word in the English language), avoid the most common conversational disasters, and use proven strategies that allow you to successfully communicate your point of view and take the upper hand in most disputes.

Verbal Judo offers a creative look at conflict that will help you defuse confrontations and generate cooperation from your spouse, your boss, and even your teenager. As the author says, "when you react, the event controls you. When you respond, you’re in control."

This new edition features a fresh new cover and a foreword demonstrating the legacy of Verbal Judo founder and author George Thompson, as well as a never-before-published final chapter presenting Thompson’s "Five Universal Truths" of human interaction.

A behind-the-scenes look at the life of the most extraordinary martial artist of all time—Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee: The Celebrated Life of the Golden Dragon is a photographic catalog of all facets of this fascinating man, from the start of his career to his untimely and tragic death in 1973. This book reveals a quiet family man behind the charismatic public persona. It shows the real Bruce Lee—the man who was so much more than an international film and martial arts celebrity.

This brilliant photo essay—compiled and edited by Bruce Lee expert John Little with the assistance of Lee's widow, Linda Lee Cadwell—reveals never-before-published family photos, including rare photos of Bruce's childhood in Hong Kong. Tender moments with his children are caught on camera, and action shots from his martial arts films are shown.

With a preface by his daughter Shannon Lee and a foreword by wife Linda, the text is drawn directly from Bruce Lee's own diaries and journals. Based on the award-winning Warner Bros. documentary, Bruce Lee: In His Own Words, sections include:Chronology of the Life of Bruce LeeEarly Years—why he began studying gung fu (kung fu) and took up wing chun, his first starring role, and his return to the USHollywood—why he got the part in The Green Hornet, teaching Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Stirling Silliphant, filming Enter the Dragon, The Way of the Dragon, Fist of Fury and more, training and acting with Chuck Norris, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dean Martin and Sharon Tate, and the creation of Jeet Kune Do (JKD)Family—meeting Linda, having children, daily life This Bruce Lee Book is part of Tuttle Publishing's Bruce Lee Library which also features:Bruce Lee's Striking ThoughtsBruce Lee's The Tao of Gung FuBruce Lee Artist of LifeBruce Lee: Letters of the DragonBruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human BodyBruce Lee Jeet Kune Do

When Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin signed up for Teach for America right after college and found themselves utter failures in the classroom, they vowed to remake themselves into superior educators. They did that—and more. In their early twenties, by sheer force of talent and determination never to take no for an answer, they created a wildly successful fifth-grade experience that would grow into the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), which today includes sixty-six schools in nineteen states and the District of Columbia.

KIPP schools incorporate what Feinberg and Levin learned from America's best, most charismatic teachers: lessons need to be lively; school days need to be longer (the KIPP day is nine and a half hours); the completion of homework has to be sacrosanct (KIPP teachers are available by telephone day and night). Chants, songs, and slogans such as "Work hard, be nice" energize the program. Illuminating the ups and downs of the KIPP founders and their students, Mathews gives us something quite rare: a hopeful book about education.

The Inspiration for Professor Kingsfield Discusses His Career, Teaching Methods Professional Issues and Other Subjects. Originally published: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942. xi, 164 pp. Spartan Education offers a fascinating account of Harvard Law School from the turn of the century to the 1940s, colorful sketches of his professors, Mr. Cadwallader and a summary of his "Spartan" approach to pedagogy. Warren also includes the texts of various addresses and articles dealing with Harvard, legal history, the American Bar and political topics. This is a reprint of the 1942 edition, which was strictly limited to 1000 copies. (Despite requests for additional copies, Warren refused to reissue the book. (He published an edition of extracts instead, however, in order to address these requests while keep his word.) "I believe in discipline. From boyhood days on, I have sought to discipline my own mind, pen, and tongue. And throughout my service on the Law Faculty I have sought to discipline the minds, pens, and tongues of the students. I have never suffered fools gladly, and regard such sufferance as mischievous. Therefore 'Spartan Education' seemed an appropriate title. As I review my life, I find the source of greatest satisfaction in my belief that there are today ten thousand men who are leading more useful and successful lives than they would be leading if my Spartan training had not played a substantial part in the molding of their minds; and that most, if not all, of them now recognize that to be the fact, and are grateful." -- Preface, ix Edward H. Warren [1873-1945] was a legendary professor at Harvard Law School. Known as "Bull" Warren for his aggressive (and often vicious) teaching methods, he was the primary model for Professor Kingsfield in John Jay Osborn, Jr.'s novel The Paper Chase. Warren attended Harvard College from 1891 to 1895 and Harvard Law School from 1897 to 1900, where his principal instructors were Ames, Gray, Smith and Thayer. After four years at Strong and Cadwalader, he joined the Harvard Law faculty, where he remained until his retirement.

A Pulitzer Prize–winning poet who confessed the unrelenting anguish of addiction and depression, Anne Sexton (1928–1974) was also a dedicated teacher. In this book, Paula M. Salvio opens up Sexton’s classroom, uncovering a teacher who willfully demonstrated that the personal could also be plural. Looking at how Sexton framed and used the personal in teaching and learning, Salvio considers the extent to which our histories—both personal and social—exert their influence on teaching. In doing so, she situates the teaching life of Anne Sexton at the center of some of the key problems and questions in feminist teaching: navigating the appropriate distance between teacher and student, the relationship between writer and poetic subject, and the relationship between emotional life and knowledge. Examining Sexton’s pedagogy, with its “weird abundance” of tactics and strategies, Salvio argues that Sexton’s use of the autobiographical “I” is as much a literary identity as a literal identity, one that can speak with great force to educators who recognize its vital role in the humanities classroom.

Discover the revolutionary writing practice that can transform your life!

In 1976, Linda Trichter Metcalf, then a university English professor, sat down with pen and paper and intuitively started a self-guided writing practice that helped to bring herself into focus and clarify her life as never before. She and a colleague, Tobin Simon, introduced this original method into their classrooms. They experienced such solid response from their students that, for the last twenty-five years, they have devoted themselves to teaching what has now become the respected practice of Proprioceptive Writing®–in workshops, secondary and elementary schools, and college psychology and writing classes around the country, among them the New School University.

“Proprioception” comes from the Latin proprius, meaning “one’s own,” and this writing method helps synthesize emotion and imagination, generating authentic insight and catharsis. Proprioceptive Writing® is not formal writing, nor is it automatic or stream-of-consciousness writing. Requiring a regular, disciplined practice in a quiet environment, the method uses several aids to deepen attention and free the writer within: Baroque music, a candle, a pad, and a pen. Presenting Proprioceptive Writing® in book form for the first time, Writing the Mind Alive shows how you, too, can use it to• Focus awareness, dissolve inhibitions, and build self-trust• Unburden your mind and resolve emotional conflicts• Connect more deeply with your spiritual self• Write and speak with strength and clarity• Enhance the benefits of psychotherapy• Awaken your senses and emotions• Liberate your creative energies

Featuring actual “writes” by students of all ages, Writing the Mind Alive is a catalyst for mental and emotional aliveness that can truly enrich the rest of your life.

A twenty-year veteran of the classroom, elementary school teacher Phillip Done takes readers through a lively and hilarious year in the classroom. Starting with the relative calm before the storm of buying school supplies and posting class lists, he shares the distinct personalities of grades K-4, what he learned from two professional trick or treating 8-year-old boys, the art of learning cursive and letter-writing, how kindergartners try to trap leprechauns, and what every child should experience before he or she grows up.

These charming, sweet, and funny tales of Mr. Done's trials and triumphs as an award-winning schoolteacher will touch readers' hearts and remind them of the true joys of childhood. We all have that one special, favorite grade school teacher whom we fondly remember throughout our adult lives - and every teacher also has students whom they will never forget. This is the perfect book for teachers, parents, and anyone else who is looking for a lighthearted, nostalgic read.

In this poignant and inspiring memoir, a beloved high school English teacher with terminal brain cancer undertakes a cross-country journey to reunite with his former students in order to find out if he made a difference in their lives, discovering along the way what is truly important in life.

Based on a beloved teacher’s most popular lesson, The Priority List is a bold, inspirational story of learning, love, and legacy that challenges us to ask: What truly matters in life?

David Menasche lived for his work as a high school English teacher. His passion inspired his students, and between lessons on Shakespeare and sentence structure, he forged a unique bond with his kids, buoying them through personal struggles while sharing valuable life lessons.

When a six-year battle with brain cancer ultimately stole David’s vision, memory, mobility, and—most tragically of all—his ability to continue teaching, he was devastated by the thought that he would no longer have the chance to impact his students’ lives each day.

But teaching is something Menasche just couldn’t quit. Undaunted by the difficult road ahead of him, he decided to end his treatments and make life his classroom. Cancer had robbed him of his past and would most certainly take his future; he wouldn’t allow it to steal his present. He turned to Facebook with an audacious plan: a journey across America— by bus, by train, by red-tipped cane—in hopes of seeing firsthand how his kids were faring in life. Had he made a difference? Within forty-eight hours of posting, former students in more than fifty cities replied with offers of support and shelter.

Traveling more than eight thousand miles from Miami to New York, to America’s heartland and San Francisco’s Golden Gate, and visiting hundreds of his students, David’s fearless journey explores the things we all want and need out of life—family, security, independence, love, adventure—and forces us to stop to consider our own Priority List.

The Art of Getting Computer Science PhD is an autobiographical book where Emdad Ahmed highlighted the experiences that he has gone through during the past 25 years (1988-2012) in various capacities both as Computer Science student as well as Computer Science faculty at different higher educational institutions in USA, Australia and Bangladesh. This book will be a valuable source of reference for computing professional at large. In the 150 pages book Emdad Ahmed tells the story in a lively manner balancing computer science hard job and life.

L.A. Unified is the fictional diary of a first-year English teacher at Pico-Union High School, one of America?s worst performing schools in one of Los Angeles?s most dangerous neighborhoods, Pico-Union. The students are apathetic, hostile and lazy; the teachers are burned out and cynical; the administrators are biding time until their next promotion, and the school?s graduation rate and Academic Performance Index are abysmal. To complicate matters, the area is also the birthplace and current home to the two largest transnational gangs in the world, 18th Street and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS 13) as well as Rockwood Street 13. While all three gangs are well represented at Pico-Union High School, they are far from alone. Weapons, drugs, failing grades, brawls, and graffiti are the norm; homework, reading, and safety are fantasy. Enter David O?Brien, a recent college grad who intends to overcome a multitude of obstacles and change the school?s failing ways. L.A. Unified is his story, partly inspirational, partly tragic, and completely real. This is Up the Down Staircase in modern times. Welcome to Pico-Union High School: Survival precedes learning.

A teacher discovers how reading, writing, and imagining can help children grow, change, and even sometimes survive

A few years back, children's-book writer Sam Swope gave a workshop to a third-grade class in Queens. So enchanted was he with his twenty-eight students that he "adopted" the class for three years, teaching them to write stories and poems. Almost all were new Americans (his class included students fom twenty-one countries) and Swope was drawn deep into their real and imaginary lives, their problems, hopes, and fears. I Am a Pencil is the story of his years with this very special group of students. It is as funny, warm, heartbreaking, and hopeful as the children themselves. Swope follows his colorful troop of resilient writers from grades three to five, coaxing out their stories, watching talents blossom, explode, and sometimes fizzle, holding his breath as the kids' families brave new lives in a strange big city. We meet Susie (whose mom was a Taoist priestess), Alex (who cannot seem to tell the truth), and Noelia (a wacky Dominican chatterbox). All of the children have big dreams. Some have big problems: Salvador, an Ecuadorian boy, must cope with a strict Pentecostal father; Soo Jung mystifies Swope with sudden silences - until he discovers that her mother has left the family. Preparing his students for a world of adult dangers, Swope is astonished by their courage, humanity, but most of all by their strength.

"From the Streets to the Skies No Limits" is based on a true story and the diary of Crystal Victoria. The book addresses many obstacles facing our young generation, as they evolve into adulthood. Many times the author made decisions based on peer pressure and an immature mindset. In the end, she overcame her biggest problem, which was herself. This is the story of her failure, flight, and motivation to overcome the struggles in spite of the conflicts that could have held her back. The message "From the Streets to the Skies No Limits" communicates to individuals is to be your best self. The author's age, level of understanding, and in-depth story is certain to grasp the reader's attention and will keep you on the edge of your seat to the end. The life she previously lived was full of crime, drug abuse & dealing, prostitution, and domestic violence. It is by the grace of God, she survivied the adversity. "From the Streets to the Skies No Limits: Diary of A Boss Lady" illustrates where and how she went wrong in the beginning, but also gained the strength to move forward and correct her mistakes.

This insightful work chronicles the life of George Washington Carver, the renowned African American scientist and teacher. George Washington Carver: A Biography begins with a discussion of the political and social circumstances in Missouri where Carver was born into slavery, circa 1864. Readers will follow Carver through his formal education to his decision to accept Booker T. Washington's offer to teach and do research at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

The bulk of the volume focuses on Carver's career at Tuskegee, a career that spanned nearly five decades, from 1896 until Carver's death in January 1943.The book highlights Carver's major achievements, including his championing of crop rotation and the hundreds of products he created from peanuts, sweet potatoes, and other plants native to the South. In addition to Carver the scientist, students will meet Carver the man, who, for example, loved art and painted throughout his life.

Phillip Done fixes staplers that won't staple, zippers that won't zip, and pokes pins in the caps of glue bottles that will not pour. He has sung "Happy Birthday" 657 times. A witness to the joys of discovery, Done inspires readers with the everyday adventures and milestones of his 32 third graders in this irresistible collection of bite-sized essays. From the nervous first day of school to the hectic Halloween parade to the disastrous spring musical, Done connects what happens in his classroom to the universal truths that touch us all. He reminds us of the delight of learning something for the first time and of the value of making a difference. 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny is for anyone who has ever taught children -- or been to third grade. It is a testament to the kids who uplift us -- and the teachers we will never forget. With just the right mix of humor and wisdom, Done reveals the enduring promise of elementary school as a powerful antidote to the cynicism of our times.

A must-read for parents, new teachers, and classroom veterans, Educating Esmé is the exuberant diary of Esmé Raji Codell’s first year teaching in a Chicago public school. Fresh-mouthed and free-spirited, the irrepressible Madame Esmé—as she prefers to be called—does the cha-cha during multiplication tables, roller-skates down the hallways, and puts on rousing performances with at-risk students in the library. Her diary opens a window into a real-life classroom from a teacher’s perspective. While battling bureaucrats, gang members, abusive parents, and her own insecurities, this gifted young woman reveals what it takes to be an exceptional teacher.

Heroine to thousands of parents and educators, Esmé now shares more of her ingenious and yet down-to-earth approaches to the classroom in a supplementary guide to help new teachers hit the ground running. As relevant and iconoclastic as when it was first published, Educating Esmé is a classic, as is Madame Esmé herself.

As a student of history and education particularly, at historically Black colleges and universities, the evolution of professional education and the requirements for preparation in teacher education have produced critical thoughts and complementary text. It would seem that the chapters identified for publication in this volume from the ideals of Pearlie C. Dove should join the list of critical volumes for the ages in teacher education. This editor takes pride in knowing that his undergraduate degree came through the preparation program developed under the leadership of Dr. Pearlie C. Dove. When I considered that I was required to read about Mortimer Adler, John Dewey, and George S. Counts, Horace Mann Bond and Carter G. Woodson in my teacher preparation program as a history education major, the contents of this volume seemingly make my educational journey comprehensible. Mainly, this book’s chapters enabled me to realize why great educators can produce a legacy through their body of work for generations. Perhaps, the reader of these volumes from 1960-2014 can acquire an appreciation for the impact of one professor-administrator on a teacher education program, a community of learners, a higher education institution, a sorority, a faith-based institution, and a future professor-administrator. I believe that Pearlie Dove invoked a presence that inspired generations of learners, communities, stakeholders, the profession of teacher education and at ninety-two years of age a beacon of hope for those charting through the turbulent waters of educational change in the twenty-first century.

Many people never fulfill their potential, but it’s not because they lack intelligence or drive. They just never develop a master plan to enjoy and achieve success. Dr. John Louis Slack shares ten proven strategies to help you build a master plan in this inspirational autobiography. You’ll learn how to •identify prerequisite strategies to building a master plan; •exhibit qualities that make others believe in your abilities; •harness social and emotional intelligence; and •respond to new situations and life transitions. By building a plan and always focusing on it, Slack overcame every obstacle and achieved true success. Join him as he looks back at growing up in rural Pennsylvania and learning the importance of family, appreciating what you have, and hard work. You can’t achieve personal and professional success until you learn the strategies in this guidebook to living. No matter what you’re trying to accomplish, your mission will be much easier with the tools and strategies you’ll find in The Master Plan: Ten Secrets to Success.

While attending college, Noel was convinced by his friends to become a teacher. While intending to become a physician, through circumstances, he changed his major and began studying for a career in education. Little did he realize the experiences he had growing up and in college would be utilized to help him become a successful teacher and administrator. Little did he realize the education he would receive from a small town would impact his life as well. Through these impacts on his life, he hopes to continue having an impact on the lives of others and in the future of education.